There is a need for a cost effective apparatus for combining hay raking and baling operations in the single pass of a tractor.
There are two major types of hay rakes—hydraulic rakes and wheel rakes. Hydraulic rakes are typically more expensive to purchase and to maintain than wheel rakes, but in some applications such as high-volume hay production on level fields, hydraulic rakes are desirable. For other operations, such as lower-volume operations or fields that are relatively rough, wheel rakes are preferable.
There is a need to provide an economical method of adapting rakes to pull a baler in order to permit a single pass raking and baling operation.
Prior art is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,354 to Luhn, et al.
The Luhn device is a heavy-duty and relatively expensive modification of a hydraulic rake. The Luhn apparatus requires a relatively large tractor to pull the device and hay baler. While commercial hay growers may be able to afford and justify the Rakehand™ product, there are a large number of smaller operations that cannot justify the purchase and maintenance expense of the device.
There are several disadvantages to the Luhn rake device. Its relatively high cost is the result of using a hydraulic rake as the raking device, whereas wheel rakes are less expensive. Another high cost element in the Luhn rake is its custom rear wheel assembly which replaces the existing hydraulic rake rear wheel assembly. In one embodiment of the current invention, the rear wheel assembly comprises the factory wheel rake rear wheel assembly.
In some level-field applications, the hydraulic rake offers advantages such as better hay pickup, than a wheel rake. In other applications, such as relatively rough fields common to many smaller producers, the wheel rake is much more robust than the hydraulic rake. On rough fields, the individual rake units of a hydraulic rake tend to be broken—which results in delay and increased maintenance expense.
It is desirable to provide a practical retrofit kit for commercially available wheel rakes such as the H&S Hi Capacity Rake™.